Your Community - Community Master Planning

Achieving Buy-In | Create An Advisory Board | Community Master Planning
Getting Projects Implemented | Model Ordinances | Community Assessment

Are you frustrated by the lack of support for pedestrians and bicyclists in your town? Does everything seem to be geared toward the car? You may very well find that there's help for your cause hidden in your community's official policies, programs, and plans.

Skeptical? Don't be. Your goal in this "paper chase" will be to find the nuggets of gold in your city's published documents and use them to help convince local officials to get on board.

The Paper Chase
The first step in the process is to get copies of these four documents (click each link for additional information:

- The Comprensive Plan
- The Transportation Plan
 - The Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)
 - The Subdivision Regulations

You might be able to round up these documents with a few phone calls, but it's probably better to plan a trip to City Hall or the county's offices. Start with the Planning Department. You might also find these documents (or some of them) on the your city's or county's web site.

Mark 'Em Up
As you receive these documents, read them over and mark them up. Suggestion:

- Use a yellow highlighter to identify every statement that supports walking or bicycling.
- Use a pink highlighter to identify every general goal, project, or program that COULD support walking and bicycling.
- Use a red highlighter to identify projects that can do harm to walking and bicycling IF you don't get involved

It's likely you'll end up with a very colorful set of documents with many possible ways to make bicycling and walking happen in your town. And, in this way, you can begin to insert yourself into the process of change. As one bicycle advocate said, "When I started coming to meetings, they started mentioning bicycling. Simply being in the room was an important first step."

Each of these important documents can help you justify your projects and offer funding opportunities to make things happen. Click the document titles above (or the links to the right) for a closer look at each of these documents and how you can make them work for your projects.